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Who Am I?

Asst. Professor in the Library Science Department at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX. Avid reader of Young Adult Lit, Book Reviews, Aspiring Author, Wife, and Owner of a dog. Email me at karinlibrarian@gmail.com.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

My name is Karin and I’m a middle school librarian by day and an English Comp professor by night. I’m almost finished with my disseration for my Ph.D. and hope to be able to call myself Dr. by the end of summer. Of course, I’ll only make my husband call me that! We live in Oklahoma on 40 acres and own Longhorn cattle. Even though we’ve been married 15 years, the only children we have are Ellie (a fourteen-year-old mutt) and Max (a 3-month-old Chihuahua).

Making connections between the books you read is something a good reader does. As a teacher/librarian it is a comprehension strategy I try to teach the kids. After reading WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead I started thinking about another book I read years ago. The second book made me think of a third book and so on and so forth.

So, I introduce The Chain 2010 Reading Challenge. When I read, like most of you, I can't help but be reminded of other books I've read. Perhaps the books share a setting, a plot, or something as simple as a character's name.

This challenge is meant to challenge you to search out connections between the books you read in 2010. There are two ways to go about this challenge. 1 - you can either make a list of books ahead of time that link together or 2 - you can create the list as you go throughout the year starting with one book and building your links from it.

Here is an example of a 4 Link Chain of books:

WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead involving time travel like...
THE POWER OF UN by Nancy Etchemendy involving a brother and sister like...
GREGOR THE OVERLANDER by Suzanne Collins involving people living underground like...
THE CITY OF EMBER by Jeannie DePrau